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Operating budget includes funding for key priorities

Posted January 21, 2006; 12:00 p.m.

by Eric Quiñones

Princeton University trustees on Jan. 21 adopted a 2006-07 operating
budget of more than $1 billion that includes special funding for
key initiatives in several areas.

The trustees acted on a budget proposal from President Shirley M.
Tilghman, based on the recommendations of the Priorities Committee of
the Council of the Princeton University Community. The committee, which
is composed of faculty, students and staff and chaired by Provost
Christopher Eisgruber, has served as the mechanism for recommending
fiscal and programmatic priorities for more than three decades.

The committee recommended the allocation of approximately $500,000 --
the same amount as last year -- to fund its highest priority
programmatic requests in an overall balanced budget. Those funds will
be allocated for:

library acquisitions, reflecting inflationary increases and the
University's expansion in fields such as neuroscience, creative and
performing arts, genomics, law and public affairs and biomedical ethics;

outreach efforts by the Office of Admission focused on minority and low-income students;

a full-time director of disability services, responding to the growth in the population of students with special needs; and

staffing needs in public safety, health services and athletics.

"The committee's recommendations … respond to critical priorities in a
number of different areas, among them core needs of the University's
academic mission and efforts to increase diversity and make the
University's education accessible to all," Eisgruber wrote in an
introductory letter to the report.

The group also recommended "staff and faculty salary pools that are
substantially larger than the limited pools of the previous two years,"
Eisgruber wrote. "The increases to the pools reflect our need to remain
competitive in the hiring markets for faculty and staff."

The report noted that, for the second year in a row, the University is
functioning in a "delicate financial environment" that Eisgruber has
described as "short-term pressures against a background of long-term
financial health."

High energy costs, in particular, remain a source of pressure on the
budget, along with rising inflation levels. According to the report,
the Priorities Committee "gratefully recognizes that the University's
highly effective efforts at energy conservation kept the problem from
being even greater, and understands that even the most aggressive such
program could not contain costs that have been high and volatile for
two years."

On the positive side, an increase in short-term interest rates
substantially raised the University's current funds income, which
directly feeds the operating budget. The University also benefited from
much higher-than-expected investment returns for the second consecutive
year.

"Thus, in absolute terms, the financial health of the University
improved despite the demands on current operating expenditure levels,"
the report said. "This gives both the Finance Committee of the Board of
Trustees and the Priorities Committee comfort that the University can
address its shorter-term budget pressures and provide for some modest
growth in program without compromising the longer-term sustainability
of the budget plan."

Tuition and fees

Reflecting the University's commitment to making a Princeton education
more accessible to all students, the Priorities Committee "has sought
once again to recommend as low a rate of increase in tuition and fees
as is consistent with sustaining Princeton University's overall
excellence."

For 2006-07, the committee recommended a 4.9 percent increase in the
rate of tuition, room and board to $42,200, which compares to total
undergraduate charges of $40,213 in 2005-06. The recommended increase
is slightly lower than last year's 5 percent and below the average
national rate of increase. The College Board reported that tuition and
fees rose 5.9 percent at four-year private institutions and 7.1 percent
at four-year public institutions in 2005-06.

"Princeton's student fee package has been the lowest of our comparison
group … for the past five years, and the dollar gap between Princeton's
fee package and the average of the other schools' fees has grown
considerably during that time," the report noted. "While a 4.9 percent
increase falls at the high end of the range of percentage increases
that the committee has recommended in the past 10 years, we believe
that, given the rising costs of higher education and recognizing the
strength of our financial aid policies, it is as small an increase as
we can prudently recommend."

Princeton's undergraduate charges next year will include: $33,000 for
tuition, a 4.9 percent increase from $31,450 in 2005-06; $4,885 for
room, up 6 percent from $4,610; and $4,315 for board, an increase of
3.9 percent from $4,153. Graduate tuition and fees are scheduled to
increase by similar percentages.

The budget for Princeton's groundbreaking financial aid program will be
increased enough to cover additional charges for students who qualify
for aid. The University has significantly enhanced its aid program in
recent years in an effort to make a Princeton education even more
affordable, highlighted by the replacement of loans with grants that do
not need to be repaid.

These efforts have dramatically improved the economic diversity of
Princeton's student body. Of this year's freshman class, a record 55
percent, or 675 students, are on financial aid -- compared to 38
percent of the class of 2001, the last class admitted before the
enhancements to the aid program.

The Priorities Committee report is available online as well as from the Office of the Provost.